Discovery School Lesson Plans- This site has lesson plans that teachers can customize by using the Teaching Tool feature to create worksheets, quizzes and puzzles. There is a wide range of lesson plans which are organized accordingly: Objectives, Materials, Procedures, Discussion Questions, Evaluation, Extensions, Suggested Readings , Links and Vocabulary. Many of the lesson plans include adaptations for younger or older students. This site is frequently updated and contains lesson plans for such recent events in history like 9/11 and Operation Iraqi Freedom. The academic standards met by each lesson plan are also listed.

http://school.discovery.com/lessonplans/

The Lesson Plan Page- The first thing you see on this site are links directing you to lesson plans appropriate for each grade level. The lesson plans are then organized under various categories such as: Community and Sociology, Culture, News and Current Events, Geography, Economics and many others. This site is great because it covers material from Pre-K to the High School level, has an extremely large selection of interesting lesson plans, and is very well organized.

http://www.lessonplanspage.com/SS.htm

Teacher Source - Social Studies | PBS - This is another great site with an enormous amount of lesson plan topics to choose from. The topics are very specific, and I liked that both U.S. History and World History were broken down by dates. The lesson plans found here are innovative, and many include interactive material. This site also offers classes for the professional development of teachers.

http://www.pbs.org/teachersource/soc_stud.htm

The Educator’s Reference Desk -

http://www.eduref.org/cgi-bin/lessons.cgi/Social_Studies

Smithsonian Education- This site is affiliated with the Smithsonian Institution, and I really liked it because the lesson plans are unique. For example, they use primary source documents such as diaries and letters from people directly involved in the subject matter, and then ask students to compare these to secondary documents such as newspaper articles or other outside sources. Museum collections are also incorporated into the lesson plans, giving students an interesting visual perspective on the topic. Check out the Professional Development link for some helpful resources for teachers.

http://smithsonianeducation.org/educators/index.html

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